The first one was awesome. The second one had better combat in my opinion. The story was good in the second too, but it was TOO linear and closed world. The second one as a stand alone game was great, but when compared side by side to the epic first one, it was indeed a let down. I have a write up on here somewhere. Anyway, the devs said they learned their lessons from the harsh feed back. They also said they "learned a lot from Skyrim". I have a feeling the third will be epic! I'm so excited. DA:Origins is in my top 5 games o' all time.

Game Informer has a new article with a ton of details, summarized at this site:

Quote:

- BioWare listened to feedback on previous games
- “A lot of the decisions we’re making are about Dragon Age and what this generation of RPGs will look like.”

Story

- Game begins as Thedas is in chaos
- Chantry and the mages are at war
- The Seekers of the Truth and Templars are no longer tied to Chantry rule
- Ferelden continues to recover from the darkspwan Blight that ended 10 years ago
- Orlais is involved with a civil war
- Tear in the sky links the real world to the Fade
- Magic and demons come from Fade
- Rip allows demons to cross freely instead of using a mage host
- Demons/abominations are running free all over
- With everything going on, “there is a suspicious level of chaos in anticipation of this event”
- Reinstitute the Inquisition
- This is an organization that doesn’t answer to any outside power
- Inquisition puts aside politics and extracts answers
- “…about looking into what conspiracies happen, what kind of dastardly deeds could occur, when people are weak and naturally torn apart”

Inquisitor

- Your hero acts as the head of the Inquisition
- Lead the organization rather than controlling a foot soldier
- You’re left as the only survivor early on, which leads to this ascension
- Create and guide the Inquisitor however you please
- 3 classes: warrior, rogue, and mage
- At least 3 races: human, elf, dwarf
- No pre-set name
- Fully voiced
- Can be male/female
- Events take place as you perform them, not being relayed by another character
- Will need to overcome resistance, but this becomes easier as the Inquisition gains more power/respect
- Inquisition’s reputation/strength go up as you finish objectives, gain items, help others

World

- Inquisition has a long reach
- Visit multiple large locations
- Several different regions
- Structural style like Dragon Age: Origins
- Access key story beats by reaching certain levels of power
- Explore to achieve that power
- Collect magical relics, solve mysteries, fight dragons, help others
- Don’t need to do everything
- Different resources to acquire better equipment and continue the story
- Won’t always be able to move from one area to another seamlessly
- “each of the areas we’re building is larger than anything we’ve built before”
- No repetitive environments
- Areas include a bog, desert, mountain range, can be explored freely in third-person
- Can take on unique quests by coming across things like an arcane device that lets you pinpoint the location of magic items
- Locations are like self-contained open worlds
- Each has a bunch of items to find and content to experience during day and night
- Game will have a mount system
- This will be more involved than just riding a horse around
- Very little is scaled to your level
- Can encounter monsters that are much more powerful than you
- Freedom is big, but BioWare as a story to tell

Frostbite

- Huge areas are made possible due to the move to Frostbite
- “We’re very happy with what we can do with the technology.”
- Will have some destructibility, game has a bigger focus on building
- Having a mage allows you to reassemble a crumbled footbridge to reach a new area
- Convert a ruined desert outpost into an Inquisition stronghold
- “If you destroy something, you can construct something.”
- Frostbite 3 allows the team to develop more easily on five platforms at once
- Better visuals on PS4/Xbox One than PS3/360
- Content being kept the same
- “Frostbite 3 is intended to bridge the gap between current-gen and next-gen”

PC

- Will be optimized for the platform
- “The PC actually is different, especially from a controls standpoint.”
- Caters to mouse and keyboard, unlike its predecessor’s tradition

Battles

- Will encounter lots of resistance
- Battle pace lies between Dragon Age 1/2
- Not always a pause-and-play affair, but not always filled with tons of action
- Directly control a character and you’ll notice control similarities to Dragon Age II
- Switch between all characters in your party at will
- Choose AI behaviors for allies if you’d like
- Commands are performed right away with a button push
- BioWare looking to make things less frantic and more deliberate
- Slowing down the speed of attacks while also creating enemies that force players to examine the battlefield
- “We’ve got that mesh of action and RPG.”
- Enemies have specialized roles that work together
- Better AI for enemies
- Enemies seem to make planned attacks based on their strengths and work together logically
- Players have a number of skill trees, specializations, abilities
- Classes have their own powers with tactical significance
- Party members can work together

More world details

- Areas will change based on what time it is
- Weather impacts exploration
- Rain can make a bog muddy, making travel slower
- Still has classic enemies including ogres, elves, qunari

Friends/foes

- Dialogue/story sequences are the best way to learn about your allies and their abilities
- This can also be done to a lesser extent in battle
- Vivienne: Inquisitor mage who was in line to hold the position of first encharter in the Circle of Orlais
- She wasn’t able to take the position due to the Orlesian civil war
- Writers analyze the story’s main themes and conflicts, then create certain characters around them
- Not all characters are created so that you’ll like them
- Other allies and their loyalties are currently unknown
- Learn early on that there’s someone behind the demon breach and resulting chaos
- Won’t learn who you’re dealing with early on
- Cassandra and Varric from Dragon Age II are playable party members
- Morrigan won’t be a party member
- Morrigan’s role seems to be more than just a cameo

Crafting system

- Use materials from around the world and enemies you defeat to make customized armor
- “Crafting in Inquisition is about customizing yourself, your character, your looks…”
- You can, technically, eventually create any colored version of the armor your start out with on par with what you find late in the game
- Characters will keep their look, but the armor will have huge influence on how they look

Choices

- Will need to make choices as problems develop
- Not always about dark choices
- BioWare is looking for players to think about potential consequences and deal with them if they happen
- Dialogue wheel similar to that of Dragon age II lets you make choices
- Some improvements
- Optional addition being added to the wheel for more clarity
- Choices have an impact throughout the world
- “Loose ends are a constant problem… We have a responsibility to resolve at least some of them if we’re going to introduce new ones…”
- Choices involve themes, mysteries from previous Dragon Age games
- Game will offer clarity on things such as Red Lyrium, Grey Wardens’ activities, Flemeth, Morrigan’s fate
- BioWare working on the issue of bringing over previous choices in Inquisition
- “It’s very important to people, and it’s very important to us. We don’t want people to feel like they can’t buy a new console or change the platform they’re buying this game on simply because they want to make sure their saves are maintained.”

Multiplayer

- Not confirmed/denied
- “it was surprising how well it was received in Mass Effect, and we were really happy with how that worked out…”

I think they mean that they will create a better experience for the mouse and keyboard.

Bioware has a weird thing about not having controller support on pc's. Same thing with Mass Effect games. As a fan of all these games it's pretty maddening that they don't include gamepad support, since just about every other game has it.

Call me crazy but I don't understand why these games are so well liked. I love RPGs of all styles but the DA stuff is really boring to me. It's like they put the brakes on in an action game or are just barely turn based. I'd like for them to play like KOTOR if you're gonna put the brakes on.

Call me crazy but I don't understand why these games are so well liked. I love RPGs of all styles but the DA stuff is really boring to me. It's like they put the brakes on in an action game or are just barely turn based. I'd like for them to play like KOTOR if you're gonna put the brakes on.

DA:O played just like a fantasy KOTOR, DA2 was much more dumbed down. Not much hope for DA3 for me honestly.

I wish it played like that is there a setting I missed? I liked queuing up my dudes attacks and stuff.

Well the queuing up of attacks was removed, but at it's core it really was KOTOR in a fantasy setting, pausing the battle, switching between characters to select attacks, then resuming to see the result. Then repausing to set up the next phase. So really all you're missing is the queue of moves which isn't a big deal to me. DA2 is where it really went downhill, they tried to make it control almost MMO-like with a hotbar of skills.

Well the queuing up of attacks was removed, but at it's core it really was KOTOR in a fantasy setting, pausing the battle, switching between characters to select attacks, then resuming to see the result. Then repausing to set up the next phase. So really all you're missing is the queue of moves which isn't a big deal to me. DA2 is where it really went downhill, they tried to make it control almost MMO-like with a hotbar of skills.

I bought 2 last week for cheap and it looks cool but plays like ass on PC.

DA:O is my favorite western RPG since KotOR. I played that game as long as I possibly could, doing every side mission and the expansions. I even had it modded up the wazoo to the point where the game was near unrecognizable (graphically) from its original release.

The tactical combat was immensely rewarding. After getting the hang of it and inputting a well-planned set of A.I. commands, you could allow it to play in real time for most battles, which is what I guess is the fluidity that DA2 tried to force from the start.

I skipped that game from all the bad gamer reports, and unfortunately the early combat video clip still looks more actiony than tactical. I have plenty of action fantasy games to choose from (I doubt they come close to the awesome arcade action of Kingdoms of Amalur) so I prefer that the DA series stay tactic-heavy with an optional overhead perspective.